The first prototype of modern Caller ID was developed in 1971 by Theodore Paraskevakos. In patents related to those devices, he proposed to send alphanumeric information to the receiving apparatus, and this was received with great success. His invention was improved by Japanese inventor Kazuo Hashimoto, who in 1976 built a prototype of a Caller ID display device that could receive Caller ID information. The first market trial for Caller ID was conducted by BellSouth in 1984. Since 1984, there has been very little innovation to traditional caller ID. In 1995, call waiting ID was introduced by Bellcore, but this only allowed caller ID to be transmitted while the user was simultaneously on the phone; it did not make any improvement to traditional caller ID.
Rising popularity of cellular phones is actually making caller ID increasingly obsolete; most networks do not support the necessary infrastructure to support the transmission of this data. For this reason, carriers report the name as “unavailable” or “wireless caller.” In 2002, mobile users surpassed landline subscribers, and in 2013, cell phones outnumber landlines 5:1.
Regardless of the platform or carrier, Caller ID suffers from at least one significant disadvantage: the technology provides only the caller's number and name to the called party. There exists a need to better identify callers and provide better information about those callers. Before this disclosure, no technology provided a method of rapidly identifying callers and providing profile information to the called party or its agents. Before this disclosure, no technology provided a way to automatically identify a caller and intelligently transfer that caller to an appropriate call designation or agent. Lastly, before this disclosure, no technology provided a means for prioritizing a caller in a call queue pursuant to that caller's subscribing to a particular efficiency system or service.